Daugherty: Ryan Ludwick calls out Reds fans

Sep. 26, 2013

The Reds didn't give fans much to cheer about in Wednesday's 1-0 loss. / The Enquirer/Cara Owsley

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An indefinable dispassion shrouds the Cincinnati Reds and their fans in this successful summer of 2013. Is it possible to sleep-walk through a season of 90-plus wins?

Irony came to the ballpark Wednesday, when the Reds announced a single-season attendance record at Great American. The team and its fans celebrated the milestone by sharing three hours of collective coma.

Is that extreme? Is it?

Give us a better definition of a 1-0 loss to a team 12 games under .500 that started a pitcher, Daisuke Matsuzaka, with 19 wins in five years. The New York Mets had three rookies in their lineup. Two of them had a combined 12 major league at-bats. The bottom four hitters owned a total of 8 RBI. All year.

Meantime, Matsuzaka has parlayed one fantastic season – 18-3 in 2008, with Boston – into a seven-year career of suspect mediocrity. He came into Wednesday’s game with a 2-3 record and an ERA of 5.52. That didn’t mean a thing. Dice-K rolled the Reds for seven-plus innings. They didn’t advance a runner past second base.

The Mets scored the only run of the game on a broken-bat bleeder by Eric Young, through a drawn-in infield in the third inning. Young’s hit dribbled between Brandon Phillips and Joey Votto. Neither made a play for the ball. Each, in fact, seemed paralyzed. It was a fine metaphor for the game and, to this point, this strangely inert season.

Votto himself offered another metaphor. He came up with two outs in the 8th inning, against Mets lefty reliever Pedro Feliciano, with Reds at 1st and 2nd. Feliciano promptly threw a wild pitch, allowing both runners to advance. With 1st base vacant, it seemed logical Feliciano would walk Votto intentionally.

He pitched to him instead. With the go-ahead run at 2nd, Votto flied out to centerfield, for the fourth time in the game.

“He hasn’t been swinging like Joey,’’ Dusty Baker shrugged. “That’s happened a few times this year.’’ Votto has, in fact, excelled at getting on base, which is wonderful if that’s your job. If Votto led off or batted 2nd, he’d be having an all-star season. He doesn’t, and he isn’t. Seventy-three RBI batting 3rd is substandard.

Baker insists losses pain him, and his players, He doesn’t like the overworked term “sense of urgency.’’

“Urgency does not help you. It hurts you. No matter how urgent you feel, you can’t hit the ball where you want,’’ Baker said. The manager also allowed that “Last year, it felt like we were all cheated out of more.’’ That’s an interesting observation, because this year, his team hasn’t played like it. The sense of unfinished business has not been apparent.

It’s oversimplifying to suggest the Reds would win more if they brought more obvious passion to the park. It might also be dead wrong. This is not an overtly excitable group. Steady-as-she-goes plays well across six months. But this year, it has contributed significantly to the impression that this club isn’t as energized as it needs to be.

Ryan Ludwick, for one, blames you.

“Coming over here, I heard about how big a baseball town this is. We’ve put a winning ballclub out there’’ three of the last four years, said Ludwick. “This is a good team. When we went to Pittsburgh, they had an advantage. (Fans) were loud. A playoff atmosphere.’’

Ludwick said he had an epiphany of sorts Wednesday. With two outs in the Reds 9th, he heard a woman in the fifth row behind the home dugout, loudly taking the fans to task. “We have a great team and our fans f------ suck,’’ she said, according to Ludwick.

He said a Mets player raised similar issues Tuesday night: “You guys are in the middle of a pennant race and no one’s here. What’s going on?’’

Said Ludwick, “I might be be calling (fans) out. But I’m calling them out in a positive way. We want loud and energetic. It’s like a natural Red Bull. We need every positive aspect we can to keep this thing going.’’

I respect this line of thought. I’ve never understood it. The onus is on the performers, not their audience. The play’s the thing. For whatever reason, this is a good team that has not seized the local imagination.

It could be that for six weeks, the Reds have stumbled against teams they should beat. Since Aug.15, they are 10-12 against sub-.500 teams, and that includes 3-0 against godawful Houston.

For whatever reason, the karma isn’t great, and hasn’t been. The team and town haven’t been energized all summer. Three home games, maybe four, to get it straightened out.